Dear Waldo,
I've writ you now I don't know how many times asking you about my jowls. What the fuck. How come no answer. If I sent you a picture, maybe you'd fuckin write me back. However, as I said in my earlier letters, it's not like they're jowls nobody else has got. They're above average-sized jowls but when I shake my head no, I feel them flapping around. I look in the mirror and I see these things like ham hanging from my face I don't like. I have looked into what doctors could do but I don't want my face stretched out. No, what I want is my jowls took off, but nobody seems to know how to do that. You write back to all these other people with less important problems, so what the fuck about my jowls.
Sidney
Dear Sidney,
I apologize for not responding to your who-knows-how-many letters concerning your jowls. I'm sorry you have them. I'm developing some jowls as well, and I agree with you, they're not something you'd choose to have on your face. In my defense for not answering the shopping bag full of your letters I keep by my wood stove about your jowls, I do not consider jowls a major problem. What they are is a fwapshank. Fwapshank is a new word, made up by me, thanks to you, which refers to any problem which disappears completely, without any negative consequences whatsoever, when ignored. That is, it's only a problem because you make it a problem. A toothache is a problem. Insufficient funds to pay bills is a problem. Running out of gas is a problem. Jowls are a fwapshank. The solution to a fwapshank is to ignore it. Here's a short list of popular fwapshanks:
1. Anything to do with the stupid hair on your head--
2. Anything to do with wrinkles--both in clothing and in your skin--
3. Nose size, breast size, penis size--
4. Comparisons you make between yourself and anyone else--
5. Every fucking thing dealing with fashion--
6. Death, and the inevitable physical changes leading to it--
7. Stains, dustballs, good old-fashioned household dirt--
8. Embarrassing fruit dangling from your family tree--
9. Uninvited, inexplicable ugly thoughts--
10. Again, Death--
Sidney, what you and me've got with these jowls of ours is a fwapshank. Let's move on bud, what do you say?
Your Fan,
Waldo Mellon